Reckless: Hounding - Act 3
by redmoon
Hounding - Act 3
Niki ducked low as the vamp’s fist came at her. She jabbed its ribs and as it reeled off balance, then spun around behind it and drove the stake through its shoulder blade. It hissed as it became dust, but Niki had already moved on.
“Well,” she said, shouldering a charging pair of vampires, “they’re all vamped out, but none look uglier than usual.” She knocked one of the pair back with a fist to the teeth and the other she impaled on the stake.
Pearce swung a wooden beam with a whoosh through the air at a vamp’s head, but missing sent him staggering forward. He was instantly tackled by the vampire he missed and the two wrestled to the warehouse floor. With a powerful, two-legged kick, he sent the vampire sprawling backwards. As the vamp came diving back down, he found himself run through with a fence post.
Logan wasn’t having as much luck. He continued to take a beating from a group of three vamps and some more gathered around to watch. Niki tried to make her way over to him, but the vamps continued to keep her distracted.
Finally, as Logan collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from above his right eye, Pearce managed to break into the circle. With a warbling cry of havoc, he dramatically drove his fence post through the chest of one vamp and his fist through the jaw of another before he too was taken to the ground.
Logan managed to pull himself to his knees and tore one vamp’s legs out from under him, pinning him quickly through the chest with his stake. An instant later, Logan felt rough hands on his shoulders and he looked up to receive an elbow to the face. He barely had time to blink, however, before the dust of the same vampire rained down over his bloodied face. Niki smiled down at him.
“You need to learn how to fight,” she said grinning, helping him to his feet. Without the slightest change in her expression, she turned and dusted the last vamp who had tried to sneak up behind her. “Either that or...” she paused for a moment then shrugged. “Yeah, I got nothing.”
Pearce groaned and lifted himself from the pile of splintered skids where he had landed, fortunately unpierced. “I could teach you both how to fight,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.
Logan looked supremely skeptical. “You weren’t doing so well yourself,” he scoffed. “I have an excuse: I’m a mere human. You’re a vampire, you should have better...” He too shrugged and frowned as he looked to Niki. “Yeah, I got nothing either.”
“For your information,” Pearce said stubbornly. “I can fight better than either of you. I’m just not permitted to.”
“What was with the battle cry?” Niki smirked. “Sounded like a bull castration gone wrong.”
The vampire held up a finger. “I have found that the less frightening my attack, the better chance it will succeed. I can sort of work around the curse.”
Logan nodded sarcastically. “Sure, chalk it up to the curse. You just can’t admit that you suck.”
Pearce raised an eyebrow as the three left the warehouse. “...Says the human punching bag.” Logan scowled and Pearce continued. “Really, in my glory days I could have taken out all those creeps on my own.” He shrugged. “Not that I would have. They would have been my crew and I’d be eating a lawyer or two right now.” He gave Logan a cruel glance.
“So you try to make your attacks... funny?” Niki was shaking her head. “Maybe I should try that. If your enemy is convulsed in laughter, it’s pretty easy to stake them.” The three moved down the dark alley and out onto the street.
Pearce grinned. “Remind me sometime to show you the move I call ‘The Smile-Time Parade.’”
Niki and Logan strolled into her apartment and gave the door a gentle nudge that it would close. With a thump, Pearce held it and waited at the threshold.
Niki frowned, no longer amused. “Um... what do you want now?”
Pearce looked about, innocently. “Nice place. Mind if I crash here?”
Logan looked to Niki, sharing her skepticism. “Yeah, I kinda do mind,” the Slayer answered. “My apartment, no invites. I know how this works.”
“Oh, come on, we’re a team now,” Pearce put on a terribly unconvincing smile. “We fight evil together. Let me in, come on.” His smile soon began to fade. This wasn’t going to work if she didn’t trust him — didn’t let him in.
Logan stood and moved to the door, his hand on his bleeding eyebrow. He took the door and closed it firmly in Pearce’s face. “Good night,” he said politely once the lock was in place.
“Come on,” came the vampire’s voice from the other side of the door. “We have to go check the airport.”
“Tomorrow,” Niki said from the kitchen, loud enough for the vamp to hear. Logan joined her and she dabbed a damp cloth over his eye. “We have wounds to lick.” She glanced down at the man in the chair before her and offered a mischievous grin. “Among other things.”
“Where the hell am I supposed to stay until then?” Pearce demanded, annoyed.
“You’re free to sleep in the hall,” Niki said smiling. “No one lives there.” There were mutters and curses from the hall which neither Niki nor Logan could interpret.
As the bleeding stopped, Niki found her hand running down Logan’s cheek and soon they were in each others arms, she straddling him on the chair. Then she was up on her back on the table, something or other clattering to the floor.
Pearce listened outside in the hall as the two lovers found their way around the small apartment. The vampire sighed dejectedly. He needed to eat someone. He hadn’t eaten since before the incident with Vince.
Soon he was wandering the dark streets of a mostly sleeping New York City. You could never truly escape the lights where they were, but there was nothing more abundant than shadows.
The vampire found his way to a secluded doorway where a man and a young child were huddled. The child wore a bright yellow raincoat, as it had been raining earlier that evening, and the other had a big black poncho with a wide brimmed black Sou’wester obscuring his face. Appropriately, perhaps, thunder rumbled, promising more rain.
As Pearce approached, his vampire instincts told him what was at hand. The man was no man but a vampire himself — a loner, just trying to survive. The child was his late night snack, snatched from a playground or schoolyard most likely.
As of yet, the child was unaware of how great a peril he was in. The two figures simply stood, as if waiting for Pearce to arrive. Pearce, never passing up a good thing, especially in these hard times, took the child’s arm, as if it had been offered. There were already bite marks on his neck and the child, no more than eight, stared up at Pearce with wide eyed wonder.
“I saved some for you,” the vamp said with a husky, Irish voice, like a pirate. “He tastes of too many sweets and cakes. A wonder he can’t fly.”
Pearce nodded, too entranced with the idea of feeding to care about any of this. “A wonder,” he agreed, lowering his head to the child’s neck. “And thank you,” he managed to say before his teeth sank into the boy’s flesh. There was a heartbeat or two during which Pearce could hear the child’s whimper of pain, then the rush of pleasure and satisfaction overcame his thoughts as the blood gushed down his throat. Eventually, though it always seemed like too soon, the body grew limp and Pearce lowered it gently to the ground.
The rain began to fall, pattering over the child’s plastic raincoat and the hat of the dark figure. Pearce blinked. Something was... It wasn’t... And then he blacked out.
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